Air Conditioning Compressor failure

Quite an unlucky customer on this job. Customer had a air conditioning recharge from another business who found evidence of a leak via system not holding pressure but proceeded to recharge the system anyway and charge the customer for the job.

I get the call and Identify the condenser is leaking. The customer is in the motor trade so carries out the repair himself and I recharge the system a few weeks later.

After this I get a call and the air con isn’t working again, the customer thinks it’s a faulty condenser as he can see oil and dye on the condenser again. So again I charge it after he’s repaired it, except this time it’s not working at all. System has refrigerant in.

I get to work finding out why. this system has a traditional clutch type compressor that isn’t duty cycled for control so it a simple process of checking for 12v at the compressor. The compressor isn’t engaged while the engine is running and system is turned on. It has 12v to it so by logic it’s the compressor at fault. Customer does the job and I recharge again for him with the system now working.

The customer let me have the old unit to strip and inspect. I found that the unit has failed internally there is scoring and swarf to the compressor scroll.